Taharas Hamishpachah for Gay Men, Nonbinary People, and All Jews

SEVENTY FACES: FIND ONE

There are seventy faces to the Torah. Halacha, the way we go as Jews, has always reflected this diversity. Like any halachic discourse, this shiur offers one face that might be meaningful and spiritually true to some, but not all.

SACRED SEXUALITY IN TANACH: MANY PATHS

In Tanach, there are contradictory directions regarding sexual tahara. For example, Leviticus 15:24 (below) contradicts Leviticus 18:19, which seems to prohibit sex with a menstruating woman altogether. In the tradition of every halachic process, we will follow one of the many possible paths (see: Who Gets to Pasken below).

• Note that the laws of sexual tahara are relevant to men and women.
• Note how long the state of being tamei lasts.
• Note how one transitions from a state of tamei to a state of tahara.

WHO GETS TO PASKEN?

Who are our authorities in determining the halacha of sacred sexuality for gay and nonbinary Jews?

If all traditional poskim from Talmud until fifty years ago did not "see" the humanity and equality of gay and nonbinary Jews (or even women), are their rulings applicable to this situation?

HOW WE MAKE A NEW PATH

A Renewal approach:

"If we want to be able to create something like Integral Halachah, that is to say to build a new approach to halachah that remains compatible with our past, we first have to do something that’s called deconstruction. This is hard to do because the people who are inside the father mussar thing [JV: as opposed to the torat imecha] and for whom it is the only meaningful way to practice , will and do deny our right to do this…

We begin with deconstruction, seeking to uncover the original insight which led to the creation of the practice which, in turn, is supposed to serve the purpose of helping us to remain connected to that insight…. A “good” mitzvah reduces our resistance to God….God needs something from us… What is it, then, that God wants from us?...First…The sense that this is not our world, but God’s, and that we all have to serve in our different and unique ways…Second is a sense of holiness… a sense of awe and mystery…Third is to recognize that we want the Sh’chinah to dwell with us. Fourth is d’vekut, “nearer my God to Thee.” After I’ve done a mitzvah, do I feel closer to God or not?...Most of the mitzvot that we’ve done until now are a compromise between what God wants and what we can afford to do. But if we want to change the texture of life on the planet, we need to begin to live Messianic halachah now. In other words, instead of waiting for Mashi’ach, how would you behave now if Mashi’ach had already come?"

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Integral Halachah: Transcending and Including by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Rabbi Daniel Siegel

Trafford Publishing (2007)

LOVE AND DESIRE ARE SACRED

As per Reb Zalman above, what is the "original insight" of the Taharas HaMishpacha practice?

According to the Talmud, love and desire are sacred in committed intimate relationship.* Although this is expressed in heterosexual terms, the principles might be applied to all intimate relationships.

*Perhaps, according to these rabbis, in other kinds of intimate relationship, too, but this focus of this shiur is committed intimate relationship

HORIZONTAL SCAN

Reb Zalman directs us to do a "horizontal" scan in our attempt to renew mitzvos. What are other committed Jews practicing or saying about male sacred sexuality that could be applicable to gay men? I couldn't find anything that directly addresses this issue. Instead I found these tangential references:

Teshuva from the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative Movement that addresses heterosexual men:

"Rabbi Joel Roth and others have taught for years that husbands should also go to mikveh before resuming sexual relations with their wives as an expression of the mutuality of their relationship and obligation for the sanctity of their relationship. In addition, similar to the bride attending mikveh before the wedding, a groom could have an equivalent ceremony with his male relatives and friends, a refreshingly spiritual alternative to the bachelor party."

Rabbi Susan Grossman

Mikveh and the Sanctity of Being Created Human

CJLS (2006)

https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/20052010/grossman_niddah.pdf

Perspective from a rabbi in the Reform movement regarding non-traditional uses of mikvah:

"...I am keen to immerse in the mikveh as I believe that mikveh will help me in my healing journey....

...Further medieval commentaries reveal that male immersion became a relatively unpracticed phenomenon. Haskelevich explores the commentary of Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi who writes that, “baalei keri do not pray until they wash even if they do not have water.” However, by the time of Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi’s commentary on Alfasi two hundred years later, “the ordinance, however, has become obsolete, as it was never universally adopted by the Jewish people and was found too irksome.”Male immersion thus became a custom rather than a law...

...Each woman’s unique story was presented with exceptional bravery, courage, thoughtfulness, and openness. Risa Sugarman used the mikveh to heal from depression, and Emma Lowe chose to immerse after being triggered by the words of the Trump administration and the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford during the hearings to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Yonah Klem wrote a remarkable article on “Using the Mikveh to Heal from Incest,” but save for one line addressing how and why men may choose to immerse, the rest of her study is focused only on women. On ritualwell.org, Tzeviya Rivka published, “A Ritual for Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse,” acknowledging Stephanie’s healing journey from being a victim to “becoming a survivor.” Rabbi Sara Luria, founder of ImmerseNYC, and Lisa Berman, Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim provided numerous rituals to assist me in my healing journey.

...We are the only ones who can own each facet of our existence, even what we perceive to be our most broken pieces. Our individual stories have the power to influence other people and effect significant change...".

Rabbi Paul Jacobson

When Halachah Seems Silent: A Male Survivor in the Mikveh
CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly Halachah and Reform Judaism (2020)

https://www.ccarpress.org/FileCache/2022/02_February/Spring%202020%20Journal%20-%20TOC.pdf

Halacha from Jewish feminism on non-traditional uses of mikvah:

"When Jewish women who were not Orthodox appropriated my reframing of immersion in the mikveh to mark occurrences for which no ritual expression had existed, they taught me an important lesson about the possibility of salvage. They began using the mikveh to purify themselves of events that had threatened their lives or left them feeling wounded or bereft or sullied as sexual beings: ovarian tumors, hysterectomies, mastectomies, miscarriages, incest, rape. In waters whose meaning they had transformed and made their own, they blessed God for renewed life. The makers have imbued these rituals with a different understanding of what purity means.

They appear to agree with the writers of the ancient texts that impurity afflicts the embodied human self; it is not a malaise of disembodied soul. But for the feminist Jew, impurity seems to mean the violation of physical or sexual integrity, death by invasion. If purity is the mirroring of God's oneness in human wholeness, it is no less fragile and transitory than humankind itself. Our flesh is gnawed by disease, eroded by age, menaced by human violence and natural disasters. Our minds and our souls are subject to intrusions, exploitations, indignities. We keep breaking or being breached. We keep knitting ourselves together, restoring ourselves, so we can once again reflect God's completeness in our female or male humanity."

https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg12536/In_your_blood_live_revisions_o.pdf

Rachel Adler

In Your Blood, Live: Re-visions of a Theology of Purity
Tikkun(Vol. 8, Issue 1) (1993)

A TIKKUN IS NEEDED: SACRED SEXUALITY FOR GAY MEN AND ALL MEN

There's not a lot out there on Jewish sacred sexuality directed at gay or nonbinary couples. This is problematic both for those individuals, but it also points to a larger tikkun needed for the entire Jewish community.

In our consensus of the pious, we understand that although our ancestors didn't understand this, women are as full humans and fully Jews as men. Therefore, we allow women full access to ritual previously reserved for men. But if women are truly spiritually equal to men, than not only must we give women access to a male world, we must give men access to a female world. Women should be rabbis and men should practice some form of nida and mikvah. Because if we simply give women the keys to the men's sanctuary, we affirm that the women's sanctuary is meaningless, all authority and kedusha lies with men. If we believe the work of women and the wisdom of women are at least equal to the work and wisdom of men, surely we must give men keys to the women’s sanctuary as well.

All halachic Jews should be equally obligated in rituals of sacred sexuality once deemed the domain of women, no matter their gender.

Non-menstruating individuals could tie their practice to a moment in the cycle of the moon-- perhaps kiddush lavana, when she is at her fullest, a nod to feminine roots of the practice of sacred sexuality and the moon as a feminine symbol (see Chullin 60B).

A person might abstain from sexuality one day (as per the biblical ordinance for men) or seven days (as per the biblical ordinance for women) depending on their soul's needs and the demands of that particular season of their life, immersing to enter a state of tahara in the evening.

KAVANOT FOR MIKVAH:

When reciting the bracha on immersion, one might feel a connection to the Jewish tradition of sacred sexuality that has been practiced in a multitude of ways over the past two thousand years, and appreciate our people’s hunger to bring morality and intentionality and God-connection into this element of our lives. One might feel gratitude to the Divine for access to this ritual.

With each dip, one might imagine the totality of one’s physical being immersed in the holding womb of the Divine. One might remember that they are an expression of the Divine. One might understand that before giving their body over to the openness of sexuality, there is value in remembering the wholeness and sanctity of one's own physical existence.

After each dip one declares: Kosher! When saying "Kosher!" one might bring to mind the totality of one's body, with particular focus on aging or ill or wounded or dysphoric parts of the self that might frustrate. One might take action to heal or to evolve our bodies, but even in its imperfections, one's body is, in that moment, fully kosher.

ACCESSIBILITY: THE MIKVAH BOWL

A mikvah is not accessible to all committed Jews who wish to practice sacred sexuality, either because of their location or because they don't have access to a mikvah that is open to their gender. Those who can't access a mikvah might consecrate a mikvah bowl, and after cleansing the self, pour water over the head three times, each time to represent a dip, reciting the bracha and the word kosher as is the tradition.

The bowl is an important symbol of sacred sexuality in Judaism, as expressed in the following sources.

ALTERNATIVE PURIFICATION: SOURCE

A precedent on using alternative cleansing processes to achieve purification can be found in the Shulchan Aruch. Although this is in regards to a d'Rabbanan rule, not a d'Orysa one, we might find it relevant.

A WORD OF BLESSING

Shimi Tisreala: Ta Eloteinu, Ta Achat!

Shema Yisroel: Ya Eloheinu, Ya Echad!

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